When I decided to write this I had absolutely no idea what I was about to unleash. The past 48 hours has seen the piece, and Nina’s reaction to it, go global, as the issues raised by her Between The Beats appearance were debated by club communities in every continent, whilst the dance media, not wishing to look a gift horse in the mouth, spun-off the story of Nina’s Facebook response, with the bonus beats of Maceo Plex’s criticism of her providing a further sub-plot. Bubblebathgate had taken on a life of its own as it swept through the DJ world like wildfire.

My blog stats went literally off the scale. It was clear on Monday that this was going to be amongst my most viewed blog posts to date, but by Tuesday it was a done deal as it superseded everything I’ve posted previously by a long shot, and there’s been some really massive posts, like ‘How Clubbing Changed The World?’, ‘Jimmy Savile – DJ Originator Or More Smoke And Mirrors?’, ‘Celebration Of The Mediocre’ and ‘The Haçienda DJ Booth’. The only thing that came anywhere close to this statistical spike was when BBC News once linked directly to the blog, but whilst that pretty much levelled out again the next day, this proceeded to go into orbit, the site visited by 5 times as many people on day 2! Suffice to say, it’s been a veritable skyscraper of a post for me, and keeping up with all the developments has been a task within itself.

So it doesn’t take much to work out the sheer scale of this – it’s not just a case of what’s happening on my own blog, but all the other online sources, including Resident Advisor, Mixmag, Fact, Beatport and many others (whilst The Independent have published an edited version of the piece). Then, of course, there’s all the various hives of activity via Facebook and Twitter – Nina’s own FB has surely never seen such sustained activity, maybe a taste of what’s to come as her growing fanbase rallies ever closer around her. What’s for sure is that thousands, probably tens of thousands, of people who’d never heard of Nina Kraviz at the start of this week, certainly know the name now (with a healthy percentage bound to be exploring her music as a consequence). If this had been a carefully orchestrated publicity stunt it would have been hailed as brilliant, but there’s much more substance to it than that, because it happened organically – the genie inadvertently let out of the bottle.

If my statement that Nina was ‘destined for DJ superstardom, if she really wants it’ might have been seen as somewhat bold last Monday, today that possibility is significantly closer. This avalanche of attention must have come as a big shock for Nina herself – it’s undoubtedly a moment in time for her career as, all of a sudden, she’s under a weight of scrutiny, some considering her as a breath of fresh air, others viewing her more cynically, but all interested in what moves she makes next. It’s game on from here for Nina and, as she navigates her way through the next phase, what should always be taken into account is that there’s one huge curveball in all of this – Nina is not a Westerner, she’s from Siberia, not Shepherd’s Bush, she’s going to look at things from a different angle.

Had it just been about Nina’s career the post would, I’m sure, have been well received, in a similar way to how others I’ve written about contemporary DJs have been, but there’s a more universal theme that weaves through all of this – the serious yin to the frivolous yang. Although the whole bubble bath thing seems a bit silly on the surface (a humorous off-shot of this hoo-ha is the appearance of the ‘DJs Having A Bath’ site), the reason why this has really touched a nerve is to do with the more serious underlying issues at play. So, if it causes a few people to look at their opinions and prejudices, then it’s served a greater purpose.

Whether we may or may not agree with Nina’s actions, they’ve undoubtedly served to highlight the institutionalised sexism within the DJ world, and although her methods may not sit right for some, her rallying call, ‘sexism and all similar bullshit must die’, is a sentiment we should all stand firmly behind.

Last month Resident Advisor, nowadays the essential online portal through which the various aspects and avenues of global dance culture can be explored, sparked something of a rumpus in DJ circles with their short film about Siberian DJ / producer Nina Kraviz, the first in their new Between The Beats series.

Following Nina throughout a run of gigs in Bulgaria, Belgium and Germany, and soundtracked by her own music, the piece provides a snapshot of life on the road for the touring DJ, with, in addition to the actual club appearances, its constant round of airports and hotels. It’s really well shot and edited, and the camera absolutely adores Nina, who, to state the glaringly obvious, is blessed with stunning natural beauty – and it’s this that lays at the very crux of the controversy.

Female DJs have always found themselves sexualised in a way that the men have never had to endure. This has warped people’s perceptions of many a DJ who just happened to be female. The fact that they’re described as a ‘female DJ’ in the first place muddies the waters, for the sex / physicality of the person has no bearing on their ability to do the job. Back when I started out, in the days when British DJs still used the microphone, there was a body of thought that said the lower male voice was the ‘more authentic’, and the higher female voice ‘just didn’t sound right’. This is something that went back to radio, which was dominated by male presenters. As a result, female DJs were largely regarded as a gimmick, a ‘dolly bird’ for the blokes to ogle over (at the extreme of this mentality you even had the ‘topless DJ’), and to be taken seriously, as someone who might actually know how to present music, was almost an impossibility.

Even now, the sexist fallout is apparent, women still afforded but a nominal role. Just look at any Top DJ lists and you’ll only find a token presence where the fairer sex is concerned. Sadly it’s often more about what she looks like than what she plays, and it must still be so difficult to break out of that stereotype and make it on your own terms if you’re born to have breasts rather than balls.

So when, in an otherwise thoughtful, somewhat pensive piece, with Nina musing on questions of illusion and loneliness, she allowed herself to be interviewed in a manner that many people would say played right into this stereotype, firstly bikini clad on a beach, but most contentiously, submerged in a bubble bath, she really set the cat amongst the pigeons.

It certainly got people talking – the forum at Resident Advisor illustrating the split in opinion that ensued, some of the comments quite condemning, others supportive. There’s rarely a middle ground, although one post (by borstal-scum) summed up these polar extremes;

“Can’t decide if this is a sensitive portraiture of the alternately euphoric and melancholic lifestyle of a very good DJ and sensitive individual, or a crass, borderline sexist bit of promotion with some pretentious emoting and camera direction to give the illusion of gravitas? A bit of both, perhaps”.

Elsewhere, warehamtn took Nina to task, quoting her own words back at her;

“‘to be a woman, in this profession, is really not easy sometimes’ – (she) said pushing foam around lying naked in a bath… what’s Russian for irony Nina?”,

whilst wnb20 questioned the motives of Resident Advisor in making the film in the first place;

“the opening beach scene and hed kandi esq slow-mo shots of her back. Really necessary? It’s basically saying she might be a good DJ, but we really like her because she’s hot”.

Regarding it as little more than trite titillation, chriswoodward remarked;

“if Nuts magazine did DJ documentaries” and concluded that; “she should have just gone the whole hog and done it topless”.

On the other side of the debate Rory weighed in with:

“In terms of the bathroom/beach shots, I think Nina has always seemed to embrace her sexuality as part of her personality. If she’s comfortable with that I don’t see that it was anyway degrading or that it detracts from her skills as a DJ and producer”.

This was a point endorsed by ForeverDelayed;

“The amount of beta males in here would be laughable if it wasn’t so painfully endemic in the dance music scene. Nina is a great producer/DJ and also a gorgeous woman, who seems to have no problem embracing her sexuality, so why should you?”

Over on YouTube fooze212 1 offered an insightful analysis:

“I see these scenes as a type of commentary of the images and narrative that is surrounding Nina. I think she understands the myths and imagery that is being created around her as a person, and in fact this documentary debates those very illusions. I think this documentary is way smarter than just ‘showing some candy’. It recreates the myths and then debates them while still maintaining the illusion and sucking the viewer into it.”

From the moment she steps behind a set of decks, Nina’s looks are always going to garner the attention of a great many people (and not just male, for she has that androgynous quality that attracts a more universal eye), so, in the furtherance of her career, how she deals with this is always going to be an issue. The main thing is that she deals with it on her own terms – that if there’s any manipulating to be done it’s by her, and not to her. She needs to be the mistress of her own myth, for this whole scrutiny is only going to get bigger and bigger, and the bigger it gets the more under the microscope she becomes. Nina is destined for DJ superstardom, if she really wants it – to put it in marketing terms, she’s the complete package.

I should tell you, at this point, that I’ve followed Nina’s emergence with particular interest. Back in 2007 I issued her first single, when she was still a member of the Moscow-based dance act MySpaceRocket, on my short-lived B77 label (the only other B77 release being Sugardaddy’s ‘Hypnotise’, before the distribution company, Goya, unfortunately went belly up).

I’d met Nina in October 2006 when she was one of the participants who’d landed a place on the Red Bull Music Academy in Melbourne. She’d attended my lecture (which you can see here: http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/greg-wilson–credit-to-the-edit), and immediately afterwards came over to talk to me. We spoke about New York Disco / Dance culture of the ’70s and early ’80s, and it was clear that this was someone who wasn’t just interested in making a career for herself as a DJ, but also immersing herself in the history surrounding it. She told me she’d originally moved to Moscow to study dentistry, but her heart was set on making the grade as a DJ and producer, specialising in House and Techno.

She played me a track she’d recorded with MySpaceRocket called ‘Amok’, and its brooding atmospherics, topped off by her sultry spoken word delivery, really caught my attention. This wasn’t the usual dance fare, but something refreshingly different that ticked all the boxes for inclusion on the new label I had in mind, which I’d wanted to span the dance spectrum, rather than confine itself to a narrow area. With Nina keen to collaborate, I suggested a 12” with the original version on one side and my own, which I put together from the stems, on the other. To tie-in with this piece I’ve just uploaded my version of ‘Amok’ onto SoundCloud:

Further to this, whilst at home working on the track with the TV on, but turned down, I made the serendipitous discovery that the original of ‘Amok’ fitted hand in glove with the visuals from Norman McLaren’s groundbreaking ‘Pas De Deux’, an animation enhanced ballet from 1968, which had won numerous awards at the time, and picked up an Oscar nomination in the process. Combining these 2 elements as an audio / visual mash-up under the title of ‘Pas D’Amok’, a limited data disc, which also included both versions issued on the 12”, was put together for promotional purposes. Even though there was just over a minute’s difference in length between ‘Pas De Deux’ and ‘Amok’, there was a natural visual resolution as the audio concluded. You can watch it here:

Having left MySpaceRocket, Nina went solo, finding the perfect fit with the independent UK based label Rekids, which had been formed by Matt Edwards (aka Radio Slave) and James Masters. Matt had also delivered a lecture of his own at the Melbourne Red Bull Academy. Nina’s Rekids debut in 2009 was ‘Pain In The Ass’, which was coupled on 12” with the x-rated ‘I’m Gonna Get You’, serving to crystalize her image as the femme fatale of the electronic dance world. She’s also issued material on a variety of other labels, and her first album, the self-titled ‘Nina Kraviz’, was released on Rekids last year.

In 2011 I was contacted by a European management company who handle some high-profile DJs. They were interested in adding Nina to their roster and emailed me asking for my thoughts, given that I’d previously worked with her. I replied as follows:

“I think she could be huge. On a personal level, I just didn’t have the time to get really involved, although I completely understood her potential and had I been looking to manage someone she’d have been the perfect candidate. She’s smart, she knows her music and, quite obviously, she’s a marketing dream. I saw a YouTube clip of one of her tracks recently, which had a significant number of views (in the tens of thousands rather than the thousands) – it seemed to me that she’s really beginning to hit her stride, and I’d totally recommend that you sign her up, if that’s what you have in mind. The other person, apart from Nina, that made a big impression on me at the Red Bull Music Academy in Melbourne was Aloe Blacc, and just look how things have panned out for him”.

Since that time her stock has risen considerably, and she’s begun to acquire friends and supporters in high places, blogging for Hugo Boss (for whom she is now the face of their Deep Red fragrance campaign), whilst receiving the ‘Johnny Depp’ seal of approval when one of her tracks, ‘Taxi Talk’ was in a Beatport chart attributed to him last year. Nina is in great demand as a DJ, booked up for months in advance playing at clubs and events worldwide – between now and June she’s appearing in Germany, Japan, Australia, France, Ibiza, the UK and the US. Her online Boiler Room appearances have been watched by hundreds of thousands of people. Here’s the most recent, from Berlin last February:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xogJgUteDAs

The Resident Advisor short will only enhance her status, the controversy surrounding it feeding into the growing Kraviz mythology, both personally orchestrated and organic, which now accompanies her career. She’s been dealt the exotic role of Siberian temptress, and, even though she might not have asked for it, how she plays it from here is crucial to her ambitions. She knows this better than anyone, which is why I’m confident she’ll find the right balance between the illusion and the reality. With all that’s happened in the past year, since her album was released, and with her fan base ever-growing at a rate of knots, the ante has been significantly upped in recent months.

Nina’s femininity is both her passport to fame and fortune and the stick with which she’ll be beaten. It’s clear from the Resident Advisor comments that she polarises opinion, but this is generally the case when anybody that’s a little bit different comes along and refuses to play by the established rules, resisting the pigeonholing that someone with a weaker will might yield to. I trust she’ll box clever, as she generally has so far – her desire to be regarded first and foremost as a DJ and producer to be reckoned with helping her avoid the pitfalls that she’ll continually encounter. There’s a price to be paid for desire – some can be cursed to be just too good looking. This she must both endure and explore.

Some will never give her credit, to them she’ll always be up behind the decks on false pretences, not because she’s a skilled DJ, but because she’s a pretty face. Others will tell her ‘if you say you want to be taken seriously don’t feed into the stereotypes’. They’ll wonder why she could have been so gullible as to let the big bad Resident Advisor talk her into bikini and bath. They’d no doubt like to wrap a worldly wise arm around her and keep her safe from harm, safe from herself, but I think it’s a serious misjudgement to assume that she’s some poor little lamb lost in the woods who doesn’t know what she’s doing, all naïve and ripe for exploitation.

Nina’s making her own statement, and regardless of whether or not you might agree with her, or even like the music she records and plays, she’s saying something – she’s causing a reaction and sparking debate. I find it refreshing that she often doesn’t do what people expect her to – in an ever more conformist world it’s reassuring to see anyone out there with maverick tendencies. I’m not saying that she doesn’t or won’t make errors of judgement, mistakes are a part of the journey, but remember, this is no wilting flower we’re talking about here, she’s big enough and ugly enough to take care of herself.

Just over 12 months ago, on October 29th 2011, the TV and radio personality Sir Jimmy Savile died 2 days before his 85th birthday (he was born on Halloween 1926). He was regarded as one of the great British eccentrics, but there were always rumours about deviant behaviour, although nothing proven. Apart from his contribution to broadcasting, Savile was also said to be the first DJ, not only in Britain, but the World, to use twin-turntables, back in the 1940s, making him an unlikely icon to DJs of the modern era. Here’s the blog post I wrote at the time of his death:http://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/2011/10/sir-jimmy-savile/

Following the programme ‘Exposure: The Other Side Of Jimmy Savile’, shown on ITV last month, the lid has been lifted on a Pandora’s box of sexual iniquity, which has shocked the nation to the core. With the Metropolitan Police now referring to Savile as ‘a predatory sex offender’, and Operation Yewtree, their investigation into his alleged exploitation of hundreds of victims, opening in excess of 400 lines of enquiry, needless to say he is no longer regarded the national hero he was lauded as being at the time of his death, but, instead, he is now reviled as the most notorious child abuser in British history.

The photo above shows Savile on the set of Top Of The Pops in 1971, surrounded by dancing teenagers. The blonde haired girl in the middle was called Claire McAlpine, and, just a few weeks on she’d taken her own life. She left a diary that told how she’d been ‘used’ by a number of radio DJs and show business personalities. At the time, despite being in such close proximity to her in the picture, Savile denied ever having seen her, and after her death an inquest was held in which the coroner dismissed her as a wannabe, a daydreamer who’d killed herself because she’d come to the conclusion that her hopes of becoming a pop star would never materialise. Nobody was arrested by the police with regards to the allegations of sexual abuse in her diary (which was, apparently, never returned to the family) and a 15 year old girl with everything to live for was, in death, dismissed as a fantasist: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2213621

This has been a difficult article for me to write, but one I felt I must attempt – the main thrust of what I want to cover being the cultural significance of a man we now know to be a monster, a man who just so happens to hold an esteemed place as a pioneer within my own profession. However, it wouldn’t feel right for me to detach this aspect of his legacy from the wider picture, that of Savile’s unchecked abuse of the young and vulnerable, and how this was able to take place on such a vast scale, and for so many years, so I’ll share some observations from what I’ve read since the whole scandal broke, as well as my own experience of growing up during the period Savile was at his most predatory, and why I believe such behaviour was continually brushed under the carpet in what was supposedly a civilised society.

Firstly, I’d like to link you to 2 of the most insightful articles I’ve read on the subject – both of which get right to the core of the matter as far as I’m concerned.

One of the most revealing quotes I came across was from Savile’s own 1974 autobiography ‘As It Happens’ (re-published in 1976 as ‘Love Is An Uphill Thing’), where he writes of an incident at the Mecca Locarno ballroom in Leeds, which he managed in the late 1950s. When a female police officer came in with a photograph of “an attractive girl who had run away from a remand home”, Savile writes: “‘Ah,’ says I all serious, ‘if she comes in I’ll bring her back tomorrow but I’ll keep her all night first as my reward’”. He then reveals that the girl did indeed go into the club and “agreed that I hand her over if she could stay at the dance, [and] come home with me”. He wrote that the following day he did then hand her over to the “lady of the law…[who] was dissuaded from bringing charges against me by her colleagues, for it was well known that were I to go I would probably take half the station with me”.

On the surface, this sounds like macho fighting talk, but by taking half of the station with him he clearly meant something altogether more devious. As someone versed in the twilight world of post-war nightlife, he was well aware of the shady goings on around him, often involving policemen who indulged in the less savoury perks of the job. His attitude was that if they took him down, he’d take some of them down with him, and this approach is likely to have served him all the way up the social ladder, hence his ability to constantly cover up what he did, despite so many people, as it now transpires, knowing exactly what he was up to. As the saying goes, ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’, but, in Savile’s case, it was likely to have included the addition ‘and what you know about them’. He was undoubtedly a master manipulator who, it would seem from what he said, covered his back by having others fear he might expose their own transgressions.

This, along with a bit of old fashioned physical threat, were no doubt his stock-in-trade when it came to avoiding prosecution. In the fascinating Louis Theroux documentary film from 2000, ‘When Louis Met Jimmy’(http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ziq8u_wlm-s01e01-jimmy-savile_news), he boasts of inventing ‘zero tolerance’, suggesting that he dealt with troublemakers harshly when managing dance halls, as ‘judge, jury and executioner’, by tying them up and leaving them down below in the boiler room until he was ready to dish out his own rough justice at the end of the night. He freely admitted he was ‘always in trouble with the law for being heavy handed’, although a slap on the wrists seemed to be the worst retribution he received.

The moral upheavals of the ’60s and ’70s played right into the hands of sexual schemers, of which Savile was an extreme example. My own generation, those who became teenagers in the ’70s, had greater opportunity to explore our curiosities. The ’60s is historically regarded as the permissive era, with the liberating factor of the pill enabling people to engage in sex without the fear of unwanted pregnancy – this happened whilst pop culture flourished, skirts shortened, and the hippie movement advocated that we should ‘make love not war’. However, it wasn’t the ’60s, but the ’70s when things really opened up, with more and more people experimenting sexually, given these new found freedoms.

The rise of feminism forced us to look at our traditional gender roles, and, as teenage boys, we had to painstakingly unravel the misogyny we’d grown up with, where girls were largely regarded as objects of our male lust, there to be remorselessly taken advantage of wherever possible. Women’s liberation confronted these issues head on, with our chauvinistic activities rightfully condemned. Some guys carried on regardless, and still do, whilst others gradually grew a conscience.

Remember, back when I was a teenager there was still very much this outmoded expectation of marrying a virgin. The girls were supposed to remain virtuous whilst the boys were given a pat on the back for ‘sowing their wild oats’. This led to girls having their ‘reputation’ left in tatters due to a night of indiscretion – good girls didn’t do that type of thing. Boys would boast of their ‘conquests’ and girls would be called ‘scrubbers’ or ‘sluts’ as a consequence.

So it’s no surprise that, in this environment, a young girl who’d been molested, or even raped, was unlikely to report this, for her own reputation would be besmirched in the process, regardless of whether or not she was believed – men didn’t generally go for ‘damaged goods’, whilst women would whisper ‘no smoke without fire’. When, with regards to the Savile revelations, people said ‘why didn’t they say anything at the time’, they fail to take into account the sexual landscape back then – a time when, if a rape accusation actually made it to court, the judge was overwhelmingly more likely to side with the man than the woman. Against this backdrop it’s no wonder that all forms of sexual abuse, especially those against children, often went unreported.

For the mother of Claire McAlpine, her beautiful daughter had not only been abused in life, but also in death. Ironically, just a week before the Savile story broke, Vera McAlpine died, aged 90, the tragedy of her daughter’s suicide unresolved. Now, over 40 years on, what she wrote in her diary back then is finally being taken seriously, and, no doubt, some of those who suspect that their names were included on her list of shame will currently be cowering at the prospect of a knock on the door – it was only supposed to be a bit of fun, wasn’t it? The Guardian ran a piece the week after Claire McAlpine’s death headlined ‘BBC May Set Age Limit For Top Of The Pops Dancers’, but nothing changed, enabling Savile (and allegedly others) to defile more impressionable youngsters at what he was said to refer to as his ‘happy hunting ground’.

This brings us to one of the main dilemmas thrown up by the Savile revelations. Although it’s now easy to revile him as a seedy paedophile, all those supposedly harmless eccentricities now unmasked to reveal a sinister manipulator, how about all those stars and celebrities we hold close to our hearts, but who, like Savile, also used their position to bed adolescents? When talking about girls as young as 13 making themselves available for sexual favours, another BBC figure remarked in an interview for the Guardian, back in the ’70s; ‘Well, of course, I didn’t ask for ID…all they wanted me to do was to abuse them sexually which, of course I was only too happy to do’. That’s a shocking thing to admit in this day and age, but it passed by pretty much without question at the time, and also 2 decades later, when it was contentiously brought up by Julie Burchill in another Guardian article, written in 1999 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/1999/jan/23/weekend.julieburchill). What makes this comment all the more disturbing to modern day sensibilities is that it wasn’t uttered by Jimmy Savile, or by fellow presenter Chris Denning (jailed at various intervals since 1974 for a string of sex offences against young boys), but by the much-loved Radio 1 DJ and ‘national treasure’, John Peel.

The fact of the matter is that, like John Peel, numerous DJs, Pop / Rock stars, TV celebrities etc. weren’t asking for ID either – wide-eyed ‘groupies’ were fair game, even if they did appear somewhat on the young side, scant consideration being made for their emotional immaturity and the long-term damage that might result from such a reckless liaison. Little thought was given to these things, and, unlike Kevin Spacey’s character in the film ‘American Beauty’ (1999), who having obsessed over his daughter’s teenage friend, realised that it would be morally wrong to take advantage of her when the opportunity arose, most men only thought of their own sexual gratification, and stuff the consequences (no doubt because there rarely were any consequences).

The veteran English music journalist, Charles Shaar Murray, summed up this generational shift in The Observer last month; “So: are we projecting modern attitudes back into a very different time? Yes, we are. Are we right to do so? Yes, we are. Many things once considered “normal” – ranging from institutional racism and legal suppression of homosexuality to drinking and driving or smoking in public places – are now proscribed, and we are, both as a culture and as individuals, better for it”.http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/oct/07/does-pop-encourage-under-age-sex

The various DJ forums I follow all had threads on the Jimmy Savile revelations as they unfolded, but the most insightful discussions I came across were via Tony Prince’s Facebook group. Prince, like Savile, is a former Radio Luxembourg disc-jockey (dating back to the late ’60s), who is also known to a later generation as the founder of DMC (Disco Mix Club), which still organizes the World Mixing Championship, and the dance music magazine, Mixmag, which he sold to the EMAP group in the mid-’90s. Tony Prince counted himself as a personal friend of Jimmy Savile’s, so the accusations of Savile’s serial child abuse hit him particularly hard. The span of people commenting ranged from contemporary DJs (including 2 Acid-House legends who took opposite viewpoints) to people, like Prince, who were part of the broadcasting world in the ’60s and ’70s. It was this older generation, some of whom had known or had met Savile themselves, whose words were particularly revealing, a number of them taking the stance of ‘now he’s dead, let the man rest in peace’ and even shifting the blame onto the victims, accusing them of being money motivated or outright liars. In true King Canute style, some still defended him after the ITV ‘Exposure’ programme had been aired and public opinion overwhelmingly turned against Savile.

As Tony Prince put it so succinctly, the era had lost its ‘nostalgic glow’ as a result of the revelations. Prior to the ITV programme, Prince, as you’d expect, defended his friend, but once it had been broadcast he was resigned to a truth he, and others of his generation, never thought they’d have to face. The reason for this was because Savile’s actions had left a dark smear on what were previously regarded as more colourful fun-filled times. “Tonight was the night ITV killed Jimmy Savile’ Prince lamented, ‘no one can recover from such allegations but I don’t doubt for a minute, having heard these rumours for many years, that Jimmy was out of control”.

Less than 12 months after he appeared on Sky News, paying tribute to someone he regarded as a mentor, he felt obliged to make a statement, under the title of ‘A Message To The British Public’, defending his broadcasting colleagues from back in the day, which began; “I can assure you of one thing, No well-known radio DJ ever socialised with Jimmy Savile let alone shared his penchant for young girls’. It concluded; ‘None of us really knew him because he only showed us what he showed the public”.

I felt for Tony Prince, and the others of his generation, even those who were obviously burying their heads in the sand and, despite the undeniable evidence, continuing to defend the indefensible (including, most shockingly, a number of women). The more allegations that have emerged, the more the memories of their youth have been sullied, a situation that has continued with the subsequent arrests of other former BBC employees and once popular entertainers.

Now the people of that generation and, indeed, my own generation, have been forced to look in the mirror, they no longer see the bright young things they once were, but the veneer has been removed and now the sinister underbelly of those romanticised times, formerly hidden behind rumour and innuendo, is clearly in view. Back then there were no paedophiles, or, more precisely, the word wasn’t in common circulation, instead we had ‘dirty old men’ in their grubby macs who prowled the parks or the public baths, but were easily identifiable for the oddballs they were. The reality however is that there were paedophiles all along, masses of them of all ages and across the class spectrum, and what’s more, back then it was easier for them to operate, with blind eyes turned at every curve. In this environment of denial it’s likely that Jimmy Savile’s whole career was based on his intention to place himself in the proximity of young girls, not on a desire to be a DJ revolutionary.

Which brings us to the aforementioned question – now we know what we know, should this affect Jimmy Savile’s DJ legacy? Will people who’ve revered him as a seminal force in our profession now airbrush him into a lesser role, or even completely sweep him under the rug of history, as has been the case with regards to Gary Glitter’s contribution to ’70s Pop, in the wake of his own child abuse scandal – should Savile’s sins negate his cultural significance? Furthermore, in a contemporary sense, did he deserve to be lionised in the first place as the man who originally introduced twin-turntables to the World, and kicked-off DJ culture as we know it, or was this yet another deception? Simply more smoke and mirrors?

Jimmy Savile came from the culture of ‘show biz’, and what he successfully did was apply that to playing records in nightspots, and subsequently on the radio – that’s his true legacy to DJ culture (although he was very much of the long outmoded ‘personality DJ’ persuasion, where the music took a supporting role to the person playing it) and, given his huge popularity in the ’60s, he could certainly be described as the prototype ‘Superstar DJ’. However, by the ’70s he was already regarded by young people as something of an ‘embarrassing uncle’ – past his sell by date, but somehow hanging on in there in the role of youth spokesman via his BBC TV and radio presence.

Back in 1975, when I started out as a club DJ, aged 15, Jimmy Savile was already viewed by most people of my age group as a relic of a bygone era. With his long bleached blonde hair and garish appearance, not to mention his tired catchphrases, he was someone you tolerated on the Thursday nights when he very much came into your orbit as one of the presenters of Top Of The Pops, essential viewing back then for any self-respecting teenager (Savile had hosted the programme’s very first edition, back in 1964). However, to an older generation, he was a hero – a ceaseless charity worker and loveable eccentric whose popularity was at an all-time high following the runaway success of his Saturday evening TV show, ‘Jim’ll Fix It’, which was launched earlier that year and would run right through until 1994, by which time he’d become Sir Jimmy – a British institution who made peoples’ dreams come true (or, as it’s transpired, a pantomime ugly sister in the role of fairy godmother).

DJs of the modern era probably wouldn’t have had any idea of who Jimmy Savile was, but for the somewhat surprising more recent revelation that he was supposedly the first DJ in the World to use 2 turntables (having, he claimed, paid a metal worker to weld them together in 1947) and therefor ‘the father of DJ culture’ as we know it. This ‘fact’ was the source of much amusement – all of a sudden Mr ‘now then, now then’ Jim’ll Fix It was elevated to the status of seminal DJ, alongside the likes of Francis Grasso, Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and Grand Wizard Theodore, the originators of what we now term turntablism. In fact all subsequent DJs, Grasso, Herc, Flash and Theodore included, were apparently indebted to Savile, for without his 2 turntable innovation the art of mixing, cutting and scratching would never have developed in the way that it did. Jimmy Savile as the originator was an incredible proposition, but it appeared to be true, at least on the surface.

What’s not in doubt is that Savile, when employed by the then powerful Mecca chain of British dance halls, was clearly instrumental in bringing the role of the DJ more to the fore at a time when live entertainment was still the order of the day (he’d claim that ‘I finished up running 52 dance halls and employing 400 disc jockeys’). Nick Cohn, the author of ‘Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom ‘(1969), an early history of Pop / Rock, had acclaimed him in the book as England’s best DJ, going as far as to say; ‘to me, he was our only disc jockey’. He certainly revolutionized the way music was consumed in these venues, but was he really the first DJ to use 2 turntables (not just in the UK, but on the entire planet)? We only have Savile’s word for this – as far as I’m aware, there are no photographs to help verify his assertion.

The story, it seems, originated in his autobiography which has been widely quoted as the source of this claim. He said that he was the first person to use 2 turntables and a microphone at the Grand Records Ball at the Guardbridge Hotel in his home city of Leeds way back in 1947, billed as ‘Jimmy Saville introducing Juke Box Doubles’. Almost 2 decades on from the book’s publication, after this information was relayed in a BBC radio documentary about club culture, people wrote to the broadcasting weekly, Radio Times. to dispute this, pointing out that ‘dual turntables’ were illustrated in the BBC Handbook as far back as 1929, and advertised in the magazine The Gramophone a few years later (there are even earlier examples, designed for cinema use, dating back to France in 1910). However, he could still claim that nobody had applied this in a space where people came to dance.

In 1995 ‘DJ Culture’, by the German author Ulf Poschardt, became the first book to attempt to chart the history of the DJ – its starting point being 1906 when, in Brant Rock, Massachusetts, Reginald A. Fessenden played Handel’s ‘Largo’, the first recording transmitted over the airwaves. In a short section outlining the development of DJ’s in Europe, Poschardt repeated Nik Cohn’s pronouncement that Jimmy Savile was a trailblazer; ‘the first British DJ who clearly identified with the bright and exciting world of youth culture’. However, he never mentioned anything about his claim to be the first DJ to use 2 turntables.

That wouldn’t become a common perception until the publication of Bill Brewster & Frank Broughton’s ‘Last Night A DJ Saved My Life’ in 1999. As with Ulf Poschardt’s book, it outlined the evolution of the DJ, but this time with, amongst other things, a far greater appreciation of the British lineage. ‘Last Night A DJ Saved My Life’ would quickly supersede ‘DJ Culture’ as the authoritative text on the subject, and Jimmy Savile’s role became more central, the book describing him as ‘probably the great-grandfather of today’s DJ’ and, building upon Nik Cohn’s ‘our best DJ’ / ‘only DJ’ quote , bestowing upon him the title of ‘Britain’s first Superstar DJ’, which would be about right given his massive celebrity in the ’60s when, as well as presenting Top Of The Pops, his shows on Radio Luxembourg, and subsequently BBC Radio 1, were hugely popular.

With regards to the all-important twin-turntables question, ‘Last Night A DJ Saved My Life’ proclaimed, in relation to his working for the Mecca organization; ‘For his first gig in Ilford, Savile commissioned a proper disco system – albeit rudimentary – built by Westex. To cut down on the gaps between records, he had the idea of using two turntables. This, the fundamental technical advance on which modern club DJing is based, Savile did in 1946’. It was unequivocal, this placed Savile right at the vanguard of DJ culture, and, all of a sudden, as with landmarks like David Mancuso’s New York Loft parties, the UK’s Northern Soul scene, Kool Herc’s block parties in the Bronx and the Sound System culture of his Jamaican homeland, Sir Jimmy Savile’s groundbreaking use of 2 turntables in those post-war years assured him an iconic place with a younger generation of DJs Worldwide, fascinated by roots and history, to whom ‘Last Night A DJ Saved My Life’ opened up a whole new realm of exploration.

Having interviewed Savile for a second time, ahead of the 2006 updated edition of the book, its authors were more ambiguous about his claims, amending accordingly. His idea to use 2 turntables in Ilford was still mentioned, but this time without the key sentence; ‘This, the fundamental technical advance on which modern club DJing is based, Savile did in 1946’. It couldn’t have been in 1946, at least not in Ilford, as he didn’t work there until the mid-’50s at the earliest (accounts as to precise dates vary). That said, the fires of those original words had spread throughout the DJ community, with Jimmy Savile becoming a cool name to drop for younger DJs who prided themselves on knowing their history and older ones still relishing the irony of it all – in 2010, the year before he died, DJ publication Mixmag would even shortlist Savile for their ‘The Greatest DJ Of All-Time?’ award (which was subsequently won by the more contemporary Tiësto).

To add a further twist, there were now 2 more names in the frame when it came to both the question of who was the first DJ to play records to dance to in a public space, as well as the first DJ to use 2 turntables. A BBC Radio 4 documentary ‘The Other Mobiles’, broadcast in 2004, interviewed Bertrand Thorpe (then 80) and Ron Diggins (then 87), arguably the World’s first mobile DJs, Diggins plying his trade 87 miles from Savile’s home city of Leeds, in Boston, Lincolnshire. The Guardian reported that; ‘in 1941 Bert would stand charismatically with his back to the audience playing “music for dancing” at 78rpm through a 30-watt amp. Ron takes credit for building the first custom DJ console in 1947. The ‘Diggola’ was made of wood and required four hours of winding to function’. Savile’s account (as outlined in ‘Last Night A DJ Saved My Life’, rather than his autobiography, where he states ’47) still pre-dated that of Diggins by a year, but whilst he didn’t have any photographic evidence to add weight to his claim, Diggins did.

As illustrated by the amendments between the editions of ‘Last Night A DJ Saved My Life’, there were obvious discrepancies in what he’d said, but you didn’t question Jimmy Savile, if he told you that he was the inventor of twin-turntables, given the lack of evidence to the contrary who were we to dispute this? After all, this was a man who’d been honoured by Queen and country (and Pope for good measure) – an upstanding citizen, let alone a living legend. Perhaps, as with his catalogue of abuse of underage girls, he pulled the wool over our eyes in positioning himself at the genesis of DJ culture, when really we should have been looking towards more marginal figures like Bertrand Thorpe and Ron Diggins, or similar pioneers in other countries. There’s no doubt that Jimmy Savile was ahead of the curve, and deserves the credit for the policies he implemented within the Mecca group, but we only have his word with regards to what happened before that. It’s not unreasonable to imagine that, as with the invention of the steam engine, a number of people in different places came up with roughly the same idea around the same time. Even if we do believe that Savile was using 2 turntables before Diggins, or vice versa, can we be sure that either was aware of what the other was doing?

On a personal level, I agree that Jimmy Savile was undoubtedly an innovator of UK club culture, as well as being the first Superstar DJ in this country, but I find it difficult to regard him as a DJ father figure when he patently wasn’t a man of music – by his own admission; “I’ve never had a record in my life. People would buy somebody a record for their birthday or Christmas or something like, that. People used to play records in their houses. I used to borrow. I only had about ten records. That’s all I needed. And I’d borrow them from anybody”. When I look at this statement, in contrast to what I know about later DJs like Guy Stevens, James Hamilton and Roger Eagle, Rhythm & Blues obsessives who went to great lengths to hunt down the best dance music of their time, and would have spent their last penny on records, you can see the cultural split – Jimmy Savile was a showman who was always mainstream in his aspirations, whilst Stevens, Hamilton and Eagle were vinyl evangelists to whom the music was primary, affecting culture from the underground out. As a British DJ, these are the inspirational figures for me – I’ve no doubt that, due to their huge passion for music and their intrinsic need to share this with others, they would have made their impact regardless of Jimmy Savile, because their entry point was completely different.

Whilst his contribution to DJ culture is debateable, I can’t help but think that Jimmy Savile’s attitude would have been that once he was dead and gone he couldn’t care less how he was perceived – it was all about what he could get away with in life, that’s where he clearly got his kicks, and he might have even revelled in mentating on the infamy he was destined to acquire. He was obviously a highly intelligent man, and must have known that the truth would surely come out after his death, without the threat of lawsuits to silence his victims. If there’d just been a handful of incidents, perhaps we’d never have known, but now we’re told that the numbers run into the hundreds, there’s only so much you can hide. He duped us good and proper for all those years, getting away with the proverbial blue murder, and now we’re stuck with him, his legacy looming large as a modern-day Great British bogeyman.

(*added-on 25.02.16) Tony Blackburn, one of Britain’s most famous DJs of all, has been sacked by the BBC after a 49 year association. It’s in relation to the Claire McAlpine case – as part of Dame Janet Smith’s report into the Savile cover-up at the BBC, Blackburn had been implicated in a complaint made at the time by Claire McAlpine’s mother. Reports are that the teenager’s missing diary was finally found by the police and handed to Smith. Blackburn denies any wrongdoing and has since stated his intention to sue the BBC for destroying his reputation, accusing them of perpetuating whitewash and cover-upbecause his version of events does not tally with theirs. He was the first ever DJ on Radio 1, when the station began broadcasting in 1967, whilst more recently, in 2012, he was crowned ‘King Of The Jungle’ on the popular TV reality show ‘I’m A Celebrity – Get Me Out Of Here’.

Last month I was over in Chicago chilling out in my hotel room ahead of my first gig in the city, at Smart Bar, a venue with a rich tradition, which opened back in 1982. Chicago is, of course, along with Detroit, Philadelphia and New York, revered as a key US city when it comes to the evolution of dance culture (and, indeed, black culture, with, way before House, a deep heritage in Rhythm & Blues, Blues and Jazz, dating right back to the ‘great migration’ of black workers from the southern states, beginning just over 100 years ago).

Checking out my emails, there were a few messages from people who weren’t aware that I was out of the country, asking if I’d watched the Channel 4 programme, ‘How Clubbing Changed The World’, which had been broadcast that night, and pointing me to a Facebook thread where a heated discussion was taking place, some people criticising the show for what it had chosen to disregard, others enjoying the trip down memory lane, regardless of what might have been left out, thankful that there was something half-decent to watch on a Friday night. I also had a look on Twitter, where the majority of people seemed positive about the programme, although this was peppered with the odd dissenting voice, asking why this or that hadn’t been included in the show’s Top 40 key moments in clubbing history.

Even though it was available to view online, I wasn’t able to watch it until my return to the UK. In the meantime I had a look on a couple of the dance forums, to see what had been said, including Faithfanzine, the home of one of London’s key movers and shakers of the Acid-House / Rave movement, Terry Farley, who, as I’d expected, had been interviewed for the programme, and it was interesting to read what he had to say. He was particularly critical of fact that Hip Hop hadn’t been covered, asking ‘how the fuck can you do a show about dance music and not mention Hip Hop?’ He was then informed that the company behind the programme, Fresh One, had already produced ‘How Hip Hop Changed The World’ in 2011. This splitting of 2 previously firmly connected forms is, I believe, one of the main reasons that the early ’80s era, which I’m constantly banging on about as crucial to our understanding of how dance culture developed in the way it did, is continually miscomprehended and, as a result, totally underplayed, time and time again.

In reply to a complaint that ‘the whole programme failed to portray the mix of music that has taken place in dance music clubs’, Farley responded; ‘I did my best to keep on repeating ‘ nothing started in ’88 and explained how thousands upon thousands would be dancing in Warehouses in the mid ’80s BUT of course they have a show ready and just wanted quotes to fit the shows template.’ In defence of this criticism the producers of the programme would surely point out that they touched on a few things, like New York Disco and Northern Soul in the ’70s, as well as pirate radio in the pre-Rave period, but this was but a fraction of the overall content, the impression being that not a lot of note happened before the big bang of ’88, which would take what was previously the domain of the underground squarely into mainstream focus.

At this point I should explain that, although I hadn’t yet seen it, and didn’t know it was coming on that weekend, I was fully aware that ‘How Clubbing Changed The World’ was imminent, because back in April I’d been approached by the programme and asked to contribute, selecting, in order of importance, 25 ‘defining moments’ from a list they’d compiled. I was also invited to let them know if there was something I felt had been missed out. I agreed to look through the list, but with some trepidation; ‘On the surface the programme sounds brilliant, but it always concerns me that we’ll get the same old story – DJs go to Ibiza in 1987 and it all kicks in from there’. Having looked through it I concluded that this wasn’t a programme I wished to personally endorse, and I emailed to politely decline, explaining my reasons:

I have to say that it is largely the same old story – there are big gaping holes as far as the black / dance music scene of the ’70s / early-mid ’80s are concerned, and on that basis I wouldn’t want to participate in rating your selections. Apart from Kiss FM and Goldie, I don’t think that black culture in this country is covered at all. The biggest omissions in my eyes are (in no specific order):

1. The release of ‘Planet Rock’ by Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force in 1982, the record that split the atom as far as electronic dance music is concerned – its importance isn’t even mentioned in the entry about Kraftwerk, even though it pre-dates (and serves to influence) the Techno movement you do mention.

2. The Street Sounds Electro series, which set the standard with regards to UK dance compilations, and introduced dance music to a whole new pre-Rave generation – it was also the first series of mixed albums.

3.The Soul / Jazz-Funk All-Dayer scene of the ’70s and early ’80s, where people were travelling up and down the country to rave well before there were raves.

4. The magazines that promoted black / dance culture during the ’70s – Blues & Soul, Black Echoes, Record Mirror, and the specialist radio DJs who pioneered via the airwaves.

5. The explosion of breakdancing in shopping centres throughout the UK in ’83 and ’84, where many young white kids first met their black counterparts and discovered black / dance culture.

8. The mods in the ’60s, and their R&B All-Nighters in cities like London and Manchester, from which the Northern Soul scene would be born.

9. Tamla Motown – the UK’s greatest dance label of all (American music, but Tamla and Motown were, along with Gordy, Soul and others, separate labels under the Motown umbrella Stateside).

I concluded by stating; ‘I’m sorry I can’t be more positive, but from the list of stuff you sent, although I’m sure it’ll be a successful programme for Fresh One, it still falls well short in projecting the fuller picture, relying mainly on the tried and tested tales as is the norm, which is fine if you’re only interested in the surface of things, but it misses the mark with regards to depth.’

I suppose that this is the crux of the matter – do you want a show that will really get to the core of how club culture emerged, and subsequently changed the world, or do you want a couple of hours of quick-fire feelgood entertainment, which although somewhat disjointed, is pretty slick in its presentation and contains a little bit of something for everyone. ‘How Clubbing Changed The World’ was always going to be the latter, a fast-moving collection of clips that, even if you didn’t like / agree with what was being shown, you knew there was another ‘moment’ imminent.

Further to this, as I noticed someone point out on Twitter, the programme seemed to have a firm eye on the US, where dance culture, on a commercial level, has finally hit paydirt. This was illustrated when the narration stated that ‘our special relationship with the USA may have got just a little bit more special’ in reference to this development. The choice of the presenter also suggests this intention – Idris Elba has major kudos across the Atlantic playing the drug lord Russell ‘Stringer’ Bell in ‘The Wire’. Away from acting, Elba DJs and records under the name DJ Big Driis, which, in his role as host, gave him a further level of authenticity / authority. Add the fact he’s regarded as something of a sex symbol, and it was a very shrewd choice (no doubt his own, given that he co-produced the show, so much so that its title was elongated to ‘Idris Elba’s How Clubbing Changed The World’, which is more likely to catch the attention of a largely indifferent US TV audience (‘How Hip Hop Changed The World’ was issued without the ‘Idris Elba’s’ preface, although, once again, he co-produced / presented the programme).

The premise of the show was that it all started in New York in the ’70s (with The Loft and Paradise Garage briefly name-checked), citing ‘Saturday Night Fever’ as the catalyst for bringing the movement to the UK, leading to Britain, as the programme asserts, taking its position at the vanguard of ‘modern club culture’. There is a level of truth in this, but only with regards to the mainstream experience – the underground scene in the UK goes right back to the early ’60s, with its own unique lineage, separate to what was happening in the clubs of NYC, which ultimately fuses with New York Disco culture in the late ’70s / early ’80s to create the alchemic conditions from which Britain would instigate the oncoming Rave era, taking the culture worldwide as a consequence. In short, club culture, as we know it, doesn’t only start in New York, but also in the UK, and, as some would argue, at an earlier point in time.

Once I would probably have been upset by a programme like ‘How Clubbing Changed The World’, which, apart from what it left out, contains far too much superfluous content for my liking, and a fair few inaccuracies to boot, but I’ve learnt, from experience, not to have any expectations and, with this in mind, I accepted the show for what it was, a populist take on the culture which has shaped so many lives, but largely without the roots apparent, just the branches. A documentary about the history of British dance culture that doesn’t include reference to the likes of Guy Stevens, James Hamilton, Roger Eagle, Jeff Dexter, Les Cokell, Ian Levine, Colin Curtis, Chris Hill, Bob Jones, Les Spaine, Richard Searling, Russ Winstanley, Mark Roman, Ian Dewhirst & Paul Schofield, Terry Lennaine, Greg Edwards, Robbie Vincent, George Power, Graham ‘Fatman’ Canter, Froggy, Mike Shaft, Paul ‘Trouble’ Anderson, Norman Jay, Jay Strongman, Chris Sullivan, Hewan Clarke, The Wild Bunch, Trevor M, Mastermind Roadshow, Maurice & Noel Watson, Paul Murphy, Mike Allen, Winston & Parrot, Stu Allan, Chad Jackson and others who made their mark in the pre-Rave era (apologies to those I’ve undoubtedly missed out), should be taken with a pinch of salt. However, such a documentary wouldn’t make it onto prime time Channel 4 – this used to be a cutting-edge station, but now it’s part of the orthodoxy. As someone said on the prior mentioned Facebook thread, ‘why didn’t they show something like ‘Maestro’ instead’ (‘Maestro’ is a gritty documentary about New York Disco culture, focusing primarily on Larry Levan, the fabled DJ from the Paradise Garage), to which someone answered ‘Channel 4 would never show something like that’, before a third person added ‘that’s exactly the type of thing Channel 4 used to show’. In essence, Channel 4 is a very different beast to what it used to be, and whereas once it was probably the station I’d be most likely to record something from, nowadays I don’t even check the listings (which is why I was unaware that ‘How Clubbing Changed The World’ was coming on in the first place). These days my stations of choice are no longer Channel 4 and BBC 2, but BBC 4 and Sky Arts.

In a certain sense it’s about getting older and realising that the era you hold most precious is, for the majority of the club populace, prehistoric, even the Acid-House period is ancient history for the majority of contemporary Channel 4 viewers, where the most popular shows of the past decade have included ‘Big Brother’ and ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’. The programme, in many respects, should have only covered what they regard as ‘modern club culture’, with its roots in House music, The Haçienda, and Ibiza, because the tokenism of mentioning just a few, and not all, of the key moments that came before, negates the efforts of all those, dancers and DJs, who really built this movement, establishing its firm foundations in the years when the mainstream glare was elsewhere.

It’s also interesting to see the omission of some DJs who very much made their mark on ‘modern club culture’. Jeff Young, for example, was the DJ who kicked off the BBC Radio 1 Friday night dance show that would later become the domain of Pete Tong, working at the station between 1988 and 1991, the peak years of the Acid-House / Rave era, before Tong took over (it was Young who also brought Tong in to work at London Records earlier in the decade). Another example would be that famous Ibiza trip itself – ‘How Clubbing Changed The World’ would only mention 2 of the group of 4 DJs who headed there in 1987, Paul Oakenfold and Danny Rampling, whilst the lesser known of the quartet, Nicky Holloway and Johnny Walker, were no longer deemed important enough to mention. Further to this, the ‘Ibiza 4’ was actually 5, for it was DJ Trevor Fung who facilitated the trip, Fung already working on the island for a number of years before the others came over, having previously holidayed there since 1977. There are other examples, but when it comes to history, not only the history of dance culture, but in general, you’ll find that the originators are more often than not usurped by those who benefitted most from their pioneering spirit, and who, in turn, are then presented themselves as the originals.

So, if post-House / Haçienda / Ibiza is ‘modern club culture as we know it’, what came before is something of a classical era, which needs to be understood in a different way. The thorough documentation of the Northern Soul movement means that any self-respecting dance chronicler has to tip their hat to it, usually focusing on Wigan Casino, its most popular venue, rather than those earlier clubs that many on the scene at the time may have cited as more influential, like The Twisted Wheel in Manchester and the Blackpool Mecca. The Casino is the epitome of Northern Soul to the casual observer, just as Studio 54 is the venue most associated with the New York Disco era…or at least it was. Nowadays, as ‘How Clubbing Changed The World’ illustrated, it’s cooler to reference The Loft and the Paradise Garage as the key NYC Disco venues. This was unlikely to have been the case in such a programme a decade ago, but the publication of Tim Lawrence’s ‘Love Saves The Day’ (2003), a widely acclaimed book that got deep into Disco culture, documenting the New York club scene of the ’70s to a level nobody else had come close to, shone a light on this previously forgotten era. Like Northern Soul, this can no longer be denied, too many people have come to realise that a documentary about the history of clubbing is going to be deeply flawed without reference to The Loft and the Garage (at the very least). That said, we still have a situation where the early ’80s, a period I maintain is perhaps the most pivotal of all, being the crossroads between the old (Soul, Funk, Disco, Jazz-Funk) and the new (Hip Hop, House, Techno, and all their subsequent mutant strains), is still very much the ‘missing link of dance culture’ I referred to in my article, ‘Electro-Funk – What Did It All Mean?’, which I wrote in November 2003, a month before I made my DJ comeback:http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/articles/what.html

As I said in the piece at the time, ‘although this (the period) has been documented in a number of books and publications down the years, often with a fair degree of insight, the subject is rarely approached with any true depth and attention to detail, the information all in fragments.’ This is still the situation almost 9 years on, although my resurrected DJ career has helped me draw more attention to my own writings on this and related subjects, meaning that at least those keeping an eye on what I’m up to, and who like to dig that bit deeper, are aware that the post-Disco / pre-House period was anything but the tumbleweed strewn dance wilderness many club documentarians have projected by omission.

I’ve always believed very strongly that the truth will eventually out, and whilst TV shows like ‘How Clubbing Changed The World’ are but transient interludes, lasting testament to this culture will be found in the pages of books and the more serious minded films and documentaries from and about the era. The ‘same old story’ I mentioned earlier will come under increasing scrutiny as more information emerges with regards to those lost years between the so called ‘death of Disco’ at the end of the ’70s and the birth of House in the mid-’80s.

It’s those crucial early-’80s years that hold the key, but there hasn’t been a voice loud enough to really capture the imagination of that significant minority needed to change perceptions, in the way that David Mancuso and The Loft re-emerged, phoenix from the flames style, as fundamental to our comprehension of the Disco era, having previously been regarded, at best, as a mere side issue, and at worst not mentioned at all. Any book / TV documentary / film that professes to understand dance culture, but which has failed to reference The Loft, or the Paradise Garage, will be seriously flawed for those studying its evolution in the future, who’ll then question the entire content of the work on the basis that if the author can get it so wrong in this case, there’s a strong likelihood that there are other significant errors in their account. Something that might today be regarded as the final word on the subject may well, in 10 years’ time be dismissed as full as holes, something new coming along in the meantime that provides a more thorough account. With this in mind, Bill Brewster & Frank Broughton’s book, ‘Last Night A DJ Saves My Life’(1999), re-published with over 100 extra pages in 2006 with planned further updates in the future, adding fresh information they might have missed previously (and, no doubt, taking out what they now feel is expendable).

Whilst, as a somewhat lone voice, or so it often seemed, it’s been difficult to highlight the claims of the early-’80s, I’m confident that the era, at least from an NYC perspective, is soon to be finally opened up in all its hybrid splendour. In his follow-up to ‘Love Saves The Day’, Tim Lawrence is currently completing a book which will hopefully hit the shelves in around 12 months’ time, titled ‘Life And Death On The New York Dance Floor: A History 1980-1983’:http://uel.academia.edu/TimLawrence/Books

Before he wrote ‘Love Saves The Day’, Lawrence had originally intended to cover the New York club scene at a later point in time, 2 decades on from David Mancuso’s original Loft parties, when Masters At Work (‘Little’ Louie Vega & Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzalez) were writing a new chapter in the NYC dance story. But what, for me, really sets him apart as a documentarian of dance culture is that, having heard Mancuso’s name come up in interviews one time too many, he saw the bigger picture, switching the emphasis to the ’70s, and set about unearthing the story that now underpins our understanding of New York Disco and its influence on all that followed. A cultural anthropologist, he restored Mancuso to his rightful place at the roots of the Disco movement, making a crucial contribution to our understanding of the era. Not only did he do this with his writing, but he was also part of a team of people who brought this seminal figure over to the UK for regular London Loft parties, which continue to this day.

In a similar way, when asked to write the sleevenotes to the 2006 ‘Discotheque: The Haçienda’ retrospective, rather than, as most writers would, concentrate on the post-’88 golden era, he asked the pertinent questions ‘why this club?’, ‘why Manchester?’, ‘how did it happen?’ and, for the first time, illuminated the period that led up to the club becoming a world-famous bastion of dance – his main focus being the period 1982-1988, before ecstasy made its impact, illustrating how the music was already well in place before the drug came on the scene. Incidentally, the #1 defining moment in dance history, according to ‘How Clubbing Changed The World’, wasn’t a musical movement, or a club, or a DJ, but the little pill itself. This is exactly why, for me, dance culture took a wrong turn in the ’90s – the music was already established when ecstasy appeared, and initially the drug enhanced the music, however, it wasn’t long before the drug became primary and the music supplementary, which is always the wrong equation.

As with ‘Love Saves The Day’, ‘Life And Death On The New York Dance Floor’ was originally intended to be a very different book. Tim Lawrence had planned to cover dance culture, not only in New York, but Chicago, Detroit and the UK, leading up to the Rave explosion, but once he’d started writing he realised that there was so much that had happened in NYC during the early ’80s that this was either going to be an unfeasibly thick book or his sole focus should be on New York from ’80-’83. This is exactly the time and place that I’ve been banging on about for all these years, so needless to say that I’m hugely excited about this book, and itching to read it. It’s going to finally illuminate that missing link in a way that helps connects the dots and, for the first time, properly bridge a major gap in peoples’ understanding of how this most critical cultural juncture would inform everything that has followed.

After Chicago I travelled to Brooklyn, where I felt a real sense of history this time around, the area increasingly the cultural hub of New York. Manhattan may have held sway in the past, but Brooklyn has risen and is, I’m sure, about to hit full-tilt in the coming years. My gig at The Bunker, held in 12-turn-13, a loft space I’ve previously appeared at for a Mister Saturday Night party, was one of those occasions that will live in the memory for a long time – there was certainly that special indefinable something in the air, and the recording can be heard here: http://soundcloud.com/gregwilson/the-bunker-brooklyn-26-08-12. The following day I was the guest of Dennis ‘Citizen’ Kane for the 1st anniversary of his Disques Town podcast, in which we focused on the New York club scene 30 years ago, with all the music I selected coming out of the city in the 6 month period up to September 1982, providing a taste of just how prolific the dance movement in NYC was back then. To contribute to the discussion Dennis had invited his friend, Sal Principato, along, to add his recollections. Sal was the frontman with the influential 99 Records band, Liquid Liquid, best-known for their 1983 track ‘Cavern’, which was what Grandmaster & Melle Mel based their worldwide hit ‘White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)’ around. The full show is now available at www.dsgtnyc.com/podcast.php or on SoundCloud:

It was great to talk with those 2 guys, both of whom experienced that period directly and have a wealth of knowledge between them. We got so deep into things that later, when I’d left the studio and returned to where I was staying, Dennis and I carried on discussing the era on the phone for over 3 hours, no longer conducting a radio interview, but simply indulging in our joint passion for what happened way back when, when Dennis was in New York, at the epicentre of things, whilst I was across the Atlantic in Manchester, fully absorbing the influences and inspiration of a city over 3,000 miles away.

There’s always going to be an element of subjectivity when someone writes a book, makes a documentary, or, indeed, does a radio interview, and nobody can produce such a thing as a ‘definitive account’, there’s always something they’ll miss – different people place different emphasis on different things, and often important aspects, sometimes vitally important, are overlooked as the emphasis is placed elsewhere, the elephant, as is said, not touched from all angles. It can take a long passage of time before someone suitably detached, as Tim Lawrence was with regards to New York in the ’70s (or The Haçienda in the ’80s), takes a more objective approach, seeing the bigger picture, and changing the general consensus as a consequence, this ‘new’ information becoming key to our fuller understanding.

Let’s hope that, on the positive side, ‘How Clubbing Changed The World’ served to whet the appetite of, at least, some of its viewers, parts of it providing them with a portal to a deeper appreciation of what went before. And it’s not just the younger generation of clubbers, even many of the older heads who were personally embroiled in the era of House, The Haçienda and Ibiza, E’d-up and enjoying those heady days to the full, have little knowledge of the records, clubs and DJs who laid the groundwork for them to subsequently experience what they now fondly recall as the greatest nights of their lives. As they say, we’re never too old to learn, especially when it comes to understanding our heritage, and whilst clubbing can lay its claim to helping change the world in which we live, some of its greatest treasures are still buried beneath the surface.

Thanks to the Ranking Maz P for making me aware of this wonderful short film documentary about DJ Derek (aka Derek Serpell-Morris), filmed 4 years ago and directed by Jamie Foord. Watch here on Vimeo in 2 parts (not sure why it’s not online as a complete item, having a total running time of less than 19 minutes):

Derek, then 67 (now in his ’70s), has become something of an institution during recent years, adored by an ever-increasing fanbase, most of whom are young enough to be his grandchildren (and, dare I say it, even great grandchildren). He’s now very much a firm festival favourite, and greatly in demand for club bookings far and wide. There’s obviously the novelty of having an OAP rocking the house, but novelty only goes so far, and this is a man who has lived, and continues to live the music he loves.

This music happens to be Reggae, in which he was schooled in the blues parties and shabeens held within the St Pauls district of his home city, Bristol. It was here where he began his DJ career, playing to an almost exclusively black audience at the Star and Garter pub. He attracted an older following (he wasn’t exactly a young man himself at the time, already past his mid-’30s), and called himself ‘Sweet Memory Sounds’ when he deejayed (which he picked up from the words of a customer who was complimenting his selections). Over a quarter of a century later, in 2006 he’d come to wider attention via his Trojan Records compilation of personal Reggae favourites, ‘DJ Derek Presents Sweet Memory Sounds’.

I met Derek about 5 or 6 years ago at a party in London thrown by Groove Armada. He was playing, in his trademark style, from 2 mini-discs that contained all his tunes. This was directly before I went on, so we were able to have a brief chat before the changeover. He told me that he’d been deejaying for a long time, ‘since 1978’, which made me feel pretty old myself, given that my own club debut was in 1975!

Having previously been an accountant, Derek had always had a great love of black music, dating back to the ’50s, when, like many other teenagers of the time, he discovered Rock & Roll, but, unlike the majority of them, he dug deeper, discovering its roots in Rhythm & Blues via Radio Luxembourg and, getting even closer to source, by tuning into American Forces Network (which broadcast to US military personnel stationed in the UK). He talks about this, and his ongoing love of black music, American and Jamaican, via Soul, Ska, Rock Steady and Funk, in the documentary, but Reggae would become the great enduring musical love of his life.

Away from music, he indulges his obsession with real ale, and travels the country fulfilling his intention to visit every Wetherspoon pub in the land! This grew out of the accomplishment of his previous aim, which was to travel on all the National Express bus routes in the UK. It’s safe to say that Derek is a fully-fledged anorak, in the original sense of the term, having developed a fascination with buses, and where they come from and go to. As they say, it takes all sorts, but big respect to a man who loves his life and lives it to the full.

I’d also like to point you in the direction of another brilliantly observed piece about Derek – this time something more recent, uploaded last month by director Yan Murawski. Titled ‘Derek’ (aka ‘Never Judge A Book By Its Cover’), it says so much about this extraordinary DJ in 4 short minutes:http://player.vimeo.com/video/47731096

To be described as “the most amazing dancers I have ever seen in my life—ever” by no less an authority as Mikhail Baryshnikov, one of the greatest male ballet dancers of all-time, you begin to get the weight of just how phenomenal the Nicholas Brothers were, yet most people haven’t even heard of them – a somewhat tragic state of affairs. Whilst Gene Kelly (with whom they shared the ‘Be A Clown’ routine in the 1948 movie ‘The Pirate’) and Fred Astaire became household names, hailed amongst Hollywood brightest stars, the brothers, Harold & Fayard, due to their skin colour, were never given the same opportunities, but thankfully a series of precious bit part performances, most notably in early ’40s films ‘Down Argentine Way’ (1940), ‘Tin Pan Alley’ (1940), ‘The Great American Broadcast’ (1941), ‘Sun Valley Serenade’ (1941), ‘Orchestra Wives’(1942)’, and the movie featured here, ‘Stormy Weather’ (1943), captured their genius so that future generations may know their true measure.

Watching their staggering performance in ‘Stormy Weather’, the first all-black musical, you’re left wondering where they might have taken dance had the social context been different, and they’d been allowed, like Astaire & Kelly, to develop their choreographic ideas to the full. Even Astaire himself graciously acclaimed this as “the greatest dance number ever filmed”.

I love the Gregory Hines interview from the documentary ‘The Nicholas Brothers: We Sing And We Dance’ (1992), where he talks us through the number step by step, remembering the first time he’d seen it, and the sheer mind-blowing impact it had had on him. With brother, Maurice Hines, he’d been dancing since he was a child, just as the Nicholas Brothers had, so they were always being compared to their iconic predecessors. It was only when he eventually saw them on celluloid that he realised that, as good as he and his brother were, these guys were on a whole other unreachable level. This interview is included as a fitting prelude to the clip. Hines would later declare that if the brothers’ biography was ever filmed, their dance numbers would have to be computer generated because no one could duplicate them

Before the brothers take to the floor, we’re treated to a dazzling performance of ‘Jumpin’ Jive’ by another Harlem legend, the irrepressible Cab Calloway (& His Orchestra). Calloway, in animated form, was previously the subject of the June 2010 blog post ‘Rotoscope Moocher’: http://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/2010/06/rotoscope-moocher%E2%80%8F/

This Sunday (August 5th) at 9pm, you’re invited to share a listening session with some likeminded souls, wherever you might be. This can be experienced either alone or communally, and you don’t need to leave the comfort of your own home to participate. If it’s not possible to make the allotted time, hopefully you can join in at your convenience at some point during the following week. See update here:http://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/2012/07/living-to-music-update-july-2012/

‘Wish You Were Here’ was released 2 and a half years on from the mega-successful ‘Dark Side’. Interestingly, despite its illustrious predecessor being one of the biggest selling LP’s of all-time, spending a staggering 292 weeks on the UK chart during the ’70s, it never reached the top spot. ‘Wish You Were Here’, following 1970’s ‘Atom Heart Mother’ was the Floyd’s 2nd #1 here.

It explores the theme of absence, it’s most famous track, ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, an ode to their former front man and early driving force, Syd Barrett, for whom the term ‘acid casualty’ could well have been coined. Barrett, increasingly out of control and on a serious downward spiral towards serious mental illness, was replaced by Dave Gilmour in 1968. To add even greater poignancy to this track, on June 5th 1975, with the band at London’s Abbey Road studios mixing it down, an overweight man with shaven head and eyebrows, who nobody recognised, entered the control room. It was a huge shock when the penny dropped as this turned out to be Barrett, whom none of the band had seen for a number of years – it was the last time any of them would see him again, Barrett died in 2006, aged 60.

A further theme is their scathing comment on the record industry, via the songs ‘Have A Cigar’ and ‘Welcome To The Machine’. This cynicism is reflected by the Storm Thorgerson designed album sleeve. When you removed the outer plastic bag it came in, the front cover was revealed, showing a photograph of 2 businessmen shaking hands, one of them on fire. This refers to the term ‘getting burnt’, when somebody is stitched up in a deal. I remember the sleeve designer Brian Cannon, who then lived with me in London and was working on the artwork for the Ruthless Rap Assassins, who I managed, being fascinated by this image, which was displayed on one of the walls in the EMI building on Manchester Square (the Assassins being signed to EMI). This image would inform much of his subsequent work, beginning with the record he set on fire on the sleeve of ‘Less Mellow’, and, most famously, with the 2 people (Brian himself and ‘Guilty Pleasures’ DJ Sean Rowley, as it happens) about to pass in the street on the cover of the Oasis album ‘(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?’.

Your own thoughts are always welcomed, and, should you join us for Sunday’s session, it’d be great if you could leave a comment here after you’ve listened to the album sharing your impressions – how the music affected you, who you listened to it with, where you were, plus anything else relevant to your own individual / collective experience.

Just over 2 months on from the passing of iconic bass man, Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn of Booker T. & The M.G.’s (http://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/2012/05/donald-duck-dunn/), another of Soul’s most prolific bass players, Bob Babbitt, a member of Motown’s illustrious studio band, the Funk Brothers, died yesterday, aged 74.

Although a lesser known name than the most celebrated Funk Brother, the late great James Jamerson, regarded by many as the best bassist of all, Babbitt is a true legend in his own right, appearing on a whole host of classic Motown tracks by artists including Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Edwin Starr and Smokey Robinson & The Miracles.

Following his first Motown recording, Stevie Wonder’s 1970 cover of The Beatles’ ‘We Can Work It Out’, Babbitt played on many million sellers, not only Motown recordings, but also for artists on other labels, including Freda Payne’s ‘Band Of Gold’ (1970), ‘Midnight Train To Georgia’ (1973) by Gladys Knight & The Pips and ‘Scorpio’ (1971) by fellow Funk Brother, guitarist Dennis Coffey, a key foundational track in the history and development of Hip Hop, with Babbitt’s bass solo a revelation at the time. Later hit credits would include the Grammy nominated ‘Then Came You’ (1974) by Dionne Warwick & The (Detroit) Spinners, the smooth ballad ‘Kiss And Say Goodbye’ (1975) by The Manhattans, the Disco anthem of the era, Gloria Gaynor’s ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’ (1975) and a particular personal favourite, the groove heaven that is Ben E. King’s ‘Supernatural Thing’ (1975). Under the ‘strange but true’ category you can also file novelty hit ‘Baby Face’ by Wing & A Prayer Fife & Drum Corps (1975), and Barry Manilow’s ode to Lola the showgirl, ‘Copacabana’ (1978). During this period he is listed as a member of MFSB, the collective of session musicians who gave Philadelphia International Records its unique sound, but looking at his discography, it’s clear this was only a peripheral role.

The most controversial recording he appears on is the Jimi Hendrix album ‘Crash Landing’, a posthumous release from 1975, on which producer, Alan Douglas, overdubbed musicians, including Babbitt, who didn’t play on the original sessions (’68-’70), wiping the original musicians off the master tape in the process, and thus deleting a part of history.

Although James Jemerson, who Babbitt himself regarded as the master of bass, features on the lions’ share of the tracks (7 out of 9) on Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’ (1971), a candidate, in many peoples’ book, for best LP ever, Babbitt plays bass on the other 2, and what a pair of tracks they are – ‘Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)’ and ‘Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)’, both sublime recordings that were subsequently chosen as singles and, after the title track, are the album’s best known cuts.

On a personal level, Babbitt’s pivotal contribution to a track that holds an extra special place in my musical affections will always be my fondest memory of him. I’m talking about 1970’s ‘Ball Of Confusion (That’s What The World Is Today)’ by The Temptations, which I blogged about last year (http://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/2011/04/ball-of-confusion), referring back to an interview in 2009 that I did with Finn Johannsen for his Berlin based ‘Sounds Like Me’ blog, in which he asked me to choose a favourite record that has strong personal associations. I recalled first listening to ‘Ball Of Confusion’ back when I was 10, when my sister brought a copy of the single home;

“the moment I heard it I was awestruck! From the count-in at the start, which I now know was the producer, Norman Whitfield, and the bass line intro, which I now know was a Funk Brother, Bob Babbitt, it’s clear that you’re boarding an aural rollercoaster.”

Babbitt talks about his time as a Motown session man in the acclaimed documentary film, ‘Standing In The Shadows Of Motown’. Back in the ’60s and early ’70s, only aficionados of Soul music would have known who the Funk Brothers were, their role being very much a background one, as was the nature of session work. It’s only in more recent years, thanks to the film, and an accompanying Grammy award winning album, that Babbitt and his brethren came to wider attention, and, like the artists they supported, were acknowledged for their own individual and collective brilliance. This story unfolds in ‘Standing In The Shadows Of Motown’ – it’s a heartfelt tale that just had to be told, and I highly recommend it to any lover of music. More info here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_in_the_Shadows_of_Motown

Like so many of my generation I was transfixed to my TV screen exactly 40 years ago today, when David Bowie performed ‘Starman’ on Top Of The Pops, and Ziggy Stardust, the singer’s alter ego, burst ever so brashly into public consciousness, ushering in a new era for Pop music.

BBC 4 marked the anniversary with an excellent documentary, ‘David Bowie And The Story Of Ziggy Stardust’, which covered Bowie’s early career, and his struggle, following his first Top 10 single, ‘Space Oddity’ (1969), to shake off the ‘one hit wonder’ tag he’d been labelled with. In retrospect, it’s incredible to think that ‘Hunky Dory’, his classic 1971 LP, totally flopped on release (it would eventually enter the UK chart in ’72 on the back of his ‘Ziggy’ success, and climb even higher, to #3, ‘Ziggy’s’ peak position being #5 – Bowie’s first #1 album would be the 1973 follow-up, ‘Aladdin Sane’, which he described as ‘Ziggy goes to America’).

The programme then outlined the evolution of the Ziggy character, and his band, The Spiders – Mick Ronson (guitar), a whole creative force in his own right who was absolutely crucial to the project, along with Trevor Bolder (bass) and Mick ‘Woody’ Woodmansey – through until the stunning conclusion on the final tour date, when, before the last song, ‘Rock And Roll Suicide’, the shock is audible as Bowie announces that this is not only the final date of the tour, but Ziggy’s last performance ever (something Bolder and Woodmansey weren’t even aware of). The concert, which took place on July 3rd 1973 at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, 3 days short of the ‘Starman’ Top Of The Pops anniversary, is hallowed as one of the all-time great live concerts, and was recorded for posterity by the acclaimed American documentary filmmaker, D. A. Pennebaker, whose previous contributions to popular culture included ‘Monteray Pop’, capturing the first major rock festival in ‘67’s Summer Of Love (with incredible performances by artists including Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin and Ravi Shankar) and ‘Dont Look Back’ (the seminal ‘fly-on-the-wall’ insight, which follows Bob Dylan on his 1965 UK tour).

There’s so much more I could say on this subject, such was the impact that David Bowie had on me during the ’72-’74 period, when I hung on every sound and every word, totally absorbed in this prolific body of mindblowing music (for blow my young mind it did). It wasn’t just Bowie, but the whole Ziggy package, complete with the Spiders, that rocked my world. ‘Hunky Dory’, ‘Ziggy Stardust’ and ‘Aladdin Sane’ are life-defining records for me, which also happen to be the 3 LPs that all 3 Spiders appear on. So, whilst acknowledging Ziggy’s 40th, I also want to celebrate one of the great rock bands – Bowie may have had the vision and the drive, but The Spiders From Mars, especially Ronson, were the facilitators of his wildest dreams.

I feel fully in the throes of festival season following last weekend’s Movement Detroit – it was a great way to make my debut in the city, with a Saturday main stage appearance in an impressive amphitheatre location.

The previous 2 overseas festivals I’ve been booked to play, Playground in Australia (March) and Rainbow Disco Club in Japan (early May), were both frustratingly cancelled due to flooding. This time, despite a spot of rain early in the afternoon, the sun decided to smile on Detroit and it was a glorious day, made all the more satisfying via the feedback from both the audience and those backstage. I couldn’t have wished for a better response – it made me feel right at home, despite never having been in the city previously (recording below via Paxahau SoundCloud). I was part of a main stage DJ line-up that day (really well programmed, I must add) that also included Mark Farina, Todd Terje, Derrick Carter and Lil’ Louis. Here’s a short piece about the day from Detroit’s Metro Times:http://blogs.metrotimes.com/index.php/2012/05/movement-day-1-electric-love/

Movement, which was originally set up in 2000 to celebrate Detroit’s Techno legacy, is now one of the USA’s foremost electronic dance gatherings, with over 80,000 people attending the 3 day event this year. The location put me in mind of when I was a kid, going on my holidays to Blackpool (the UK’s Coney Island) and buzzing off the sights and sounds of the fairground. Looking around, I was struck with the thought that festivals are, in many respects, modern day fun fairs, with youthful energy in abundance and an atmosphere both thrilling and edgy, as otherwise disconnected groups of people are brought together in a communal celebration of music. With this in mind I began to see each stage providing a different ride for the crowd to enjoy, as they boarded the rollercoaster and reacted in unison to all the climbs, dips and bends which the DJs provided.

All the tribes were out in force, a multi-cultural melting pot of humanity, reflecting the city’s rich diversity. Detroit has a rugged quality, it knows how to roll with the punches having seen its once prosperous car industry drastically downscale in the past 40 years, prompting an exodus that has caused its population to more than halve from its 1.8 million peak in the ’50s. This is starkly illustrated by vast derelict areas once full of life and endeavour, but now unnervingly desolate, not to mention highly dangerous if you wander off the beaten track. Perhaps the greatest symbol of this fall from grace is Michigan Central Station, a giant amongst buildings (once the tallest rail station in the world), which has been subjected to the scars of abandonment since the last train stopped there in 1988.

This decline has been documented in a recent book of photographs by Julia Reyes Taubman called ‘Detroit: 138 Square Miles’ – there’s a short piece about it here on the BBC website:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18271118

Although contemporary clubbers revere Detroit for its Techno heritage, it’s Hitsville USA that defines the city for me, and many others of my generation – the house where all-time greats including Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Four Tops , Diana Ross & The Supremes, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, The Jackson 5 etc etc etc, gave the world the gift of so much cherished music. This is, of course, the hallowed home of the Motown sound – if you want to trace dance music in its modern context back to source, all roads lead to Detroit Michigan, Motortown, Motown.

I consciously paid my respects by playing a couple of re-worked Motown classics at Movement, the Drop Out Orchestra’s take on ‘My World Is Empty Without You’ by The Supremes and Bermuda Traiangle’s edit of Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell’s ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’, and before I headed back to the airport to catch my flight home, Organic promoter, Chris Galea, was kind enough to drive me to Hitsville. Unfortunately it’s closed to the public on Mondays, so I couldn’t go inside and see ‘the Snakepit’, the somewhat sacred main studio at Motown where so much incredible music was recorded during those halcyon years from 1959-1972, before the company’s founder, Berry Gordy Jr, moved operations west to LA, bringing to an end a truly golden era. Although it would have obviously been great to look around, I was happy enough just to make my personal pilgrimage, and stand outside the building in which so much history was made – hopefully I can venture inside next time.

I was acutely aware that I was in the city that had set in motion my love affair with music, for Motown was very much my first love (or Tamla, as we were more likely to refer to it in the UK back in the ’60s, the iconic black Tamla Motown label being the catch-all outlet for releases that came out on a variety of Motown imprints stateside – Motown, Tamla, Gordy, Soul, V.I.P etc). The British youth had a special obsession with this music, so much so that the whole unique sub-culture of Northern Soul was born out of the quest to find more and more (which equated to rarer and rarer) records with that distinctive Motown flavour. Growing out of the Mod movement of the ’60s, where Soul was the music of choice, a well of black gold was discovered, often via obscure Detroit labels whose artists were chasing that era defining Motown sound, sometimes bringing in moonlighting members of The Funk Brothers, Motown’s legendary in-house musicians, for full authenticity. There were a lot of great recordings made in Detroit during the ’60s that weren’t successful, vanishing pretty much without a trace at the time, and it was this treasure that the Northern Soul aficionados dug deep to unearth. Touching on the roots of Tamla Motown in the UK, and the subsequent Northern Soul movement, I refer you to my blog piece ‘The Original Soulboy – Dave Godin’:http://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/2011/03/original-soulboy/

To get a level of just how influential Motown was, it’s worth considering the remarkable statistic that The Funk Brothers played on more #1 records than The Beatles, Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys combined! Detroit was the World capital when it came to hits.

There’s history all around you in Detroit. After the festival I headed along to St Andrews Hall, where I was making an after party appearance. This is the venue where Eminem regularly played before he was famous, and which featured in the movie ‘8 Miles’ (Hip Hop was also evident at Movement, where Public Enemy closed on the Sunday night, with Ice-T making a guest appearance).

The P-Funk of Parliament-Funkadelic is also part of the city’s DNA (or should that be LSDNA). Their recordings 2nd only to James Brown’s as the most sampled in Hip Hop history. Once again, music that provided a big personal influence, this time during my mid-teens.

Apart from its black / dance music legacy, it’s also the city that played a major role in the conception of Punk, via the late ’60s emergence of cult groups The Stooges (with legendary frontman Iggy Pop) and the MC5, whose raw energy was an inspiration for so many bands who came after them. From Alice Cooper through to The White Stripes, the Rock tradition has continued to flourish in the city ever since.

As the popular slogan says, ‘Detroit Hustles Harder’, for that’s the cloth it’s cut from. It also has an indomitable spirit, which I’m sure will serve to regenerate a phoenix from the flames resurgence, of which Movement is certainly a key part. I’ve no doubt that a lot more people from the UK will head over in the coming years – America is the new frontier as far as the dance festival is concerned, and Detroit is right at the vanguard of this, having a dozen years development already under its belt. I anticipate a high demand for tickets in 2013, and beyond, as the word continues to spread ever further afield – you can’t keep a good city down, and this is truly a great one, a city like no other. I just hope they ask me back next time.